MEDIA ESPIONAGE —

Chinese hacking of US media becoming a “widespread phenomenon”

Wall Street Journal: Chinese hackers hit us, too.

Computer systems operated by The Wall Street Journal have been penetrated by Chinese hackers for the apparent purpose of monitoring the publication's coverage of China, the newspaper reported Thursday.

The acknowledgement came in a short article published less than 24 hours after The New York Times reported a similar breach. According to the earlier report, the NYT network had been rooted for four months by hackers who were intent on gathering intelligence about a series of stories related to the family of China’s prime minister. The report cited unnamed sources as saying Bloomberg News was also targeted by Chinese hackers after the news organization published an article in June about the wealth accumulated by relatives of Xi Jinping. Xi has since become China's general secretary of the Communist Party and is expected to become president in March.

The NYT went on to say that media outlets have been targeted since 2008, and today's WSJ article characterized the hacking campaign as extensive.

"The infiltration at the Journal, along with reports of computer network breaches at the New York Times and other news outlets, indicate that Chinese spying on US media has become a widespread phenomenon," the WSJ said. "Chinese hackers for years have targeted major US media companies with hacking, repeatedly penetrating deep inside some newsgathering systems, according to several people familiar with the response to the cyberattacks."

The FBI has been investigating the attacks on media outlets for more than a year and considers the activity a national-security case against US interests, the paper said, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The WSJ hacks, which company executives said are "ongoing," aren't an attempt to gain commercial advantage or to appropriate customer data, Thursday's report said. The WSJ has overhauled its computer systems to improve security.

Journalists are going to have to make sure sensitive informants are never put onto the network, emailed, or called (keep everything in that old school flip notepad in a face-to-face meeting). Basically, revive cold war spy-craft.

Journalists are going to have to make sure sensitive informants are never put onto the network, emailed, or called (keep everything in that old school flip notepad in a face-to-face meeting). Basically, revive cold war spy-craft.

Journalists are going to have to make sure sensitive informants are never put onto the network, emailed, or called (keep everything in that old school flip notepad in a face-to-face meeting). Basically, revive cold war spy-craft.

This is my main concern with this. The chinese government is not fond of whistleblowers and has a poor human rights record. If you are a chinese dissident, who do you try to get your story out to, if the Western press is all being illegally monitored by your own government? Even if you don't use names, there will probably be enough to make finding you easier. And how can a person in china contact somone outside of china apart from by electronic means.

Let us not forget all the government blackmail opportunities with all the access to confidential info/souces...

Journalists are going to have to make sure sensitive informants are never put onto the network, emailed, or called (keep everything in that old school flip notepad in a face-to-face meeting). Basically, revive cold war spy-craft.

Encrypting an actual message wouldn't be especially difficult (hell, just put a .txt file in a TrueCrypt container and attach it to a blank email) but I'm sure concealing who is actually doing the communicating is a tougher problem for journalists.

it may be better to assume the obvious "hacking is a widespread phenomenon".

Which ignoramuses downvoted that?

Chinese hackers have penetrated almost every US target worth penetrating. That's a pretty safe assumption.

Hacking someone else's Internet-connected network is EASY. Really really easy, if you know what you are doing. The hard part is not getting caught. That is not a problem Chinese hackers need to worry about.

I'm sure the CIA, KGB, Mossad, MI6, BND, DST and whatever other acronyms secret agencies hide behind would never do such a thing. It's only the Chinese.

Oh no. But they don't get caught :3

To be fair, I actually doubt that the CIA actually bothers to hack various Chinese media companies - what's the point? It just makes them look bad if they're caught. And really, they may do less than you think to avoid problems. Hitting up third world countries is one thing; attacking the US or Russia is something else.

I suspect part of the reason they're so bold is that they feel there are no repercussions.

Seems like every month for the last year or so I get a notification on my gmail account that someone made a suspicious login attempt against my account. Every time, its an IP address from China.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this? Clearly, google caught them anyway, but I'd rather not risk them slipping by eventually. Every time I get one of these notifications, I change my password to something completely different.

Or maybe it is a concerted attack on the image of china. An excuse to allow anything they wish to do. Some gets hacked. Must have been the Chinese.

Much like any other war - cold or otherwise. Why did the ship sink? Must have been a Russian mole or bombed. Sound familiar? It's a typical BS that happens. Give a little bit of uncertain information...follow it up with other common things happening...and it seem like it couldn't be coincidence it must be true then. <shrug>

It's what the US does. It is what the media does. You can follow the same stuff before Iraq was invaded, set up the bad guy. Evidence doesn't matter, it's media spin. Seems far more likely.

Well, thats one possible answer. However, being a system admin isn't that rare and you can ask most of them where the bulk of their rogue traffic comes from. Bet ya its Asia. Its pretty easy to spot when the same subnet keeps turning up in your failed login reports.

I'm sure the CIA, KGB, Mossad, MI6, BND, DST and whatever other acronyms secret agencies hide behind would never do such a thing. It's only the Chinese.

Not typically, no, They tend to take a more hands-on, in-person approach to intelligence gathering. All the hacking in the world still has nothing on social engineering. Especially when you're after a specific person.

Or maybe it is a concerted attack on the image of china. An excuse to allow anything they wish to do. Some gets hacked. Must have been the Chinese.

Much like any other war - cold or otherwise. Why did the ship sink? Must have been a Russian mole or bombed. Sound familiar? It's a typical BS that happens. Give a little bit of uncertain information...follow it up with other common things happening...and it seem like it couldn't be coincidence it must be true then. <shrug>

It's what the US does. It is what the media does. You can follow the same stuff before Iraq was invaded, set up the bad guy. Evidence doesn't matter, it's media spin. Seems far more likely.

It might be a little hard for you to hear this while wearing your tin foil hat, but Chinese hacking attempts have been a fact for at least the past decade and are well documented. China has been extremely successful in the past in hacking into the US Department of Defense and other government networks. The idea that these current (successful) hacking attempts are somehow out of character is unfounded. China has hacked into US networks in the past and continues to do so because there have been little to no repercussions.

Yes, I'm sure that the US and its CIA does hack the networks of China and other countries, but they seem to exercise more caution and cover their tracks, instead of hacking whatever network they can find with reckless abandon like China. Furthermore, there has been absolutely no evidence that the US has hacked other government networks for the sole purpose of punishing political dissidents, which seems to be exactly what China is doing with regard to US media outlets. US hacking attempts seem to be targeted at obtaining government and military information and sabotaging nuclear ambitions.

I'm not passing judgement here. I'm just telling you the facts as they stand.

Encrypting an actual message wouldn't be especially difficult (hell, just put a .txt file in a TrueCrypt container and attach it to a blank email) but I'm sure concealing who is actually doing the communicating is a tougher problem for journalists.

Traffic analysis -- seeing who is talking to whom -- is a principal tool of counter-espionage.

Or maybe it is a concerted attack on the image of china. An excuse to allow anything they wish to do. Some gets hacked. Must have been the Chinese.

Much like any other war - cold or otherwise. Why did the ship sink? Must have been a Russian mole or bombed. Sound familiar? It's a typical BS that happens. Give a little bit of uncertain information...follow it up with other common things happening...and it seem like it couldn't be coincidence it must be true then. <shrug>

It's what the US does. It is what the media does. You can follow the same stuff before Iraq was invaded, set up the bad guy. Evidence doesn't matter, it's media spin. Seems far more likely.

It might be a little hard for you to hear this while wearing your tin foil hat, but Chinese hacking attempts have been a fact for at least the past decade and are well documented. China has been extremely successful in the past in hacking into the US Department of Defense and other government networks. The idea that these current (successful) hacking attempts are somehow out of character is unfounded. China has hacked into US networks in the past and continues to do so because there have been little to no repercussions.

Yes, I'm sure that the US and its CIA does hack the networks of China and other countries, but they seem to exercise more caution and cover their tracks, instead of hacking whatever network they can find with reckless abandon like China. Furthermore, there has been absolutely no evidence that the US has hacked other government networks for the sole purpose of punishing political dissidents, which seems to be exactly what China is doing with regard to US media outlets. US hacking attempts seem to be targeted at obtaining government and military information and sabotaging nuclear ambitions.

I'm not passing judgement here. I'm just telling you the facts as they stand.

I agree with what you are saying. China is by no means an angel.

But the op does have a point, if not eloquently explained. The US government does have a tendency to "need" some sort of enemy threat, probably to justify the outrageous defense/homeland security budget. Iraq is kind of over now, N. Korea is kind of a joke... so you can see a clear pivot towards China and Iran. Whether or not that involves fabricating stories... its doubtful (then again there is strong precedent for that in the past). But it has meant a large increase in the rhetoric and number of negative news stories.

They are just trying to get to the appropriate news stories to correct mis-information.

I sincerely hope that's sarcasm.

Part of what scares me about the Chinese cyberattacks is that it's not just the government intelligence agencies--it's also civilians who consider what they're doing to be patriotic or otherwise righteous. My impression is that hacker communities elsewhere tend to be more disillusioned with their governments.

Or maybe it is a concerted attack on the image of china. An excuse to allow anything they wish to do. Some gets hacked. Must have been the Chinese.

Much like any other war - cold or otherwise. Why did the ship sink? Must have been a Russian mole or bombed. Sound familiar? It's a typical BS that happens. Give a little bit of uncertain information...follow it up with other common things happening...and it seem like it couldn't be coincidence it must be true then. <shrug>

It's what the US does. It is what the media does. You can follow the same stuff before Iraq was invaded, set up the bad guy. Evidence doesn't matter, it's media spin. Seems far more likely.

It might be a little hard for you to hear this while wearing your tin foil hat, but Chinese hacking attempts have been a fact for at least the past decade and are well documented. China has been extremely successful in the past in hacking into the US Department of Defense and other government networks. The idea that these current (successful) hacking attempts are somehow out of character is unfounded. China has hacked into US networks in the past and continues to do so because there have been little to no repercussions.

Yes, I'm sure that the US and its CIA does hack the networks of China and other countries, but they seem to exercise more caution and cover their tracks, instead of hacking whatever network they can find with reckless abandon like China. Furthermore, there has been absolutely no evidence that the US has hacked other government networks for the sole purpose of punishing political dissidents, which seems to be exactly what China is doing with regard to US media outlets. US hacking attempts seem to be targeted at obtaining government and military information and sabotaging nuclear ambitions.

I'm not passing judgement here. I'm just telling you the facts as they stand.

Facts being what? Your claim of the US being a white knight and China being a dark knight? Really?

Or maybe it is a concerted attack on the image of china. An excuse to allow anything they wish to do. Some gets hacked. Must have been the Chinese.

Much like any other war - cold or otherwise. Why did the ship sink? Must have been a Russian mole or bombed. Sound familiar? It's a typical BS that happens. Give a little bit of uncertain information...follow it up with other common things happening...and it seem like it couldn't be coincidence it must be true then. <shrug>

It's what the US does. It is what the media does. You can follow the same stuff before Iraq was invaded, set up the bad guy. Evidence doesn't matter, it's media spin. Seems far more likely.

Well, thats one possible answer. However, being a system admin isn't that rare and you can ask most of them where the bulk of their rogue traffic comes from. Bet ya its Asia. Its pretty easy to spot when the same subnet keeps turning up in your failed login reports.

Wasn't it reported that it came from a university? That by the time they investigated all the back doors and command and control centres had been taken offline?

How do they know it was Chinese? It was ongoing for 4 months. But then there is the insinuation that gosh darn it must have been the chinese everyone is being hit by the chinese. Seems a little of a jump don't you? Maybe if they had some evidence it would be a little more credible. Or maybe it's, they got hacked and they call out the local villain, or witch to burn.

Or maybe it is a concerted attack on the image of china. An excuse to allow anything they wish to do. Some gets hacked. Must have been the Chinese.

Much like any other war - cold or otherwise. Why did the ship sink? Must have been a Russian mole or bombed. Sound familiar? It's a typical BS that happens. Give a little bit of uncertain information...follow it up with other common things happening...and it seem like it couldn't be coincidence it must be true then. <shrug>

It's what the US does. It is what the media does. You can follow the same stuff before Iraq was invaded, set up the bad guy. Evidence doesn't matter, it's media spin. Seems far more likely.

It might be a little hard for you to hear this while wearing your tin foil hat, but Chinese hacking attempts have been a fact for at least the past decade and are well documented. China has been extremely successful in the past in hacking into the US Department of Defense and other government networks. The idea that these current (successful) hacking attempts are somehow out of character is unfounded. China has hacked into US networks in the past and continues to do so because there have been little to no repercussions.

Yes, I'm sure that the US and its CIA does hack the networks of China and other countries, but they seem to exercise more caution and cover their tracks, instead of hacking whatever network they can find with reckless abandon like China. Furthermore, there has been absolutely no evidence that the US has hacked other government networks for the sole purpose of punishing political dissidents, which seems to be exactly what China is doing with regard to US media outlets. US hacking attempts seem to be targeted at obtaining government and military information and sabotaging nuclear ambitions.

I'm not passing judgement here. I'm just telling you the facts as they stand.

Facts being what? Your claim of the US being a white knight and China being a dark knight? Really?

I hate to state the obvious, but there is literally a 0% chance that the US would want to go to war with China and vice-versa. Making claims of false-flag operations ahead of some supposed invasion of China is pants-on-head retarded.

If it was bullshit, I think they'd rather claim it was Iran or Syria, and that Abdullah the terrorist du jour just sextorted your grandma to show her tits or else watch oil prices rise and dear gawd won't someone think of the children fuckin nuke 'em NOW gotdammit call in the sombitchen' DRONES!Not the most boring and repeated actual skilled hacking news of the last 5 years only now its the WSJ. Yawn. Chinese hackers commit espionage and are worried about their illustrious chairmen of the grand hypocrisy losing face in the western media due to wealth/hookers/pedophilia/cannibalism/what will they think of next omg they're screwing chickens now wtf dood/crack addiction? You don't say. I kin haz fight back noa?

Or maybe it is a concerted attack on the image of china. An excuse to allow anything they wish to do. Some gets hacked. Must have been the Chinese.

Much like any other war - cold or otherwise. Why did the ship sink? Must have been a Russian mole or bombed. Sound familiar? It's a typical BS that happens. Give a little bit of uncertain information...follow it up with other common things happening...and it seem like it couldn't be coincidence it must be true then. <shrug>

It's what the US does. It is what the media does. You can follow the same stuff before Iraq was invaded, set up the bad guy. Evidence doesn't matter, it's media spin. Seems far more likely.

It might be a little hard for you to hear this while wearing your tin foil hat, but Chinese hacking attempts have been a fact for at least the past decade and are well documented. China has been extremely successful in the past in hacking into the US Department of Defense and other government networks. The idea that these current (successful) hacking attempts are somehow out of character is unfounded. China has hacked into US networks in the past and continues to do so because there have been little to no repercussions.

Yes, I'm sure that the US and its CIA does hack the networks of China and other countries, but they seem to exercise more caution and cover their tracks, instead of hacking whatever network they can find with reckless abandon like China. Furthermore, there has been absolutely no evidence that the US has hacked other government networks for the sole purpose of punishing political dissidents, which seems to be exactly what China is doing with regard to US media outlets. US hacking attempts seem to be targeted at obtaining government and military information and sabotaging nuclear ambitions.

I'm not passing judgement here. I'm just telling you the facts as they stand.

Facts being what? Your claim of the US being a white knight and China being a dark knight? Really?

I hate to state the obvious, but there is literally a 0% chance that the US would want to go to war with China and vice-versa. Making claims of false-flag operations ahead of some supposed invasion of China is pants-on-head retarded.

Who says invasion? But lets say you wanted to have exclude all Chinese companies from any purchase of any American technology assets? Or limit their ability to do business here? Or impose economic harm? It is the perception that America is in the right that something is required that is manufactured.

Its nowhere the same in scale. Its like saying there was no difference between the US and Nazi Germany during World War II because the US imprisoned some Japanese people on the West Coast and the Nazis killed millions of people by poison gas.

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But the op does have a point, if not eloquently explained. The US government does have a tendency to "need" some sort of enemy threat, probably to justify the outrageous defense/homeland security budget. Iraq is kind of over now, N. Korea is kind of a joke... so you can see a clear pivot towards China and Iran. Whether or not that involves fabricating stories... its doubtful (then again there is strong precedent for that in the past). But it has meant a large increase in the rhetoric and number of negative news stories.

People need to get a grip on reality. You lack one.

Here's reality: the US sees itself as a model for the world. IT doesn't want to OWN the world. It wants the world to become more like itself. Many people do not understand this about the US, but it is reality. Its very hard for people to accept the idea that Bush actually, really thought that he would bring Democracy to the middle east the way he did. He must have an ulterior motive, right? It has to be for the oil, right?

Well, no. The problem is you're assuming that people are actually smart. Bush really did believe that he could make the Middle East into a democracy. He really did think we would be greeted as liberators, because he thought that everyone was secretly an American underneath, understanding that they were oppressed by bad guys.

Until you understand this, you will never really understand US foreign policy. Yeah, we do do nasty, underhanded things for bad reasons, and people manipulate politicians all the time, but the truth of the matter is that the US really is for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. It took me a long time to really come to understand just how stupid people are.

Iran stands against everything the US stands for. China stands against many things. North Korea is an awful place. Calling these guys "bad guys" isn't really wrong. They are.

The US has good reason to be paranoid about China. China is, quite frankly, evil. They're Lawful Evil, but Lawful Evil is still evil.

Iran being an awful place is well attested to; people who are apologists for them are universally morons. Just look at their treatment of their own populace, especially of women and people who dissent. They're a theocracy, and a fairly nasty one.

North Korea is probably the worst place on Earth now. China never should have protected them, and the only reason they haven't been rolled over yet is because of the Chinese.

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Facts being what? Your claim of the US being a white knight and China being a dark knight? Really?

On the whole, the USA is "good". China is not.

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How do they know it was Chinese? It was ongoing for 4 months. But then there is the insinuation that gosh darn it must have been the chinese everyone is being hit by the chinese. Seems a little of a jump don't you? Maybe if they had some evidence it would be a little more credible. Or maybe it's, they got hacked and they call out the local villain, or witch to burn.

Its not that hard to figure out.

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I hate to state the obvious, but there is literally a 0% chance that the US would want to go to war with China and vice-versa. Making claims of false-flag operations ahead of some supposed invasion of China is pants-on-head retarded.

I personally think that, if we could actually deactivate their nuclear weapons, it might not entirely be a bad thing to knock them down now.

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Who says invasion? But lets say you wanted to have exclude all Chinese companies from any purchase of any American technology assets? Or limit their ability to do business here? Or impose economic harm? It is the perception that America is in the right that something is required that is manufactured.

Yes, because you know, their threatening to attack anyone who does anything having to do with their insane territorial rights totally shows how awesome they are. Look at their treatment of Taiwan for crying out loud.

I'm sure the CIA, KGB, Mossad, MI6, BND, DST and whatever other acronyms secret agencies hide behind would never do such a thing. It's only the Chinese.

no doubt all these government agencies are engaged in hacking. it's highly unlikely though that a country with a more open government would have any desire to hack other countries media outlets though. China is doing these hackings not to go after media companies or governments, but to find out who leaked information and do go after them if they are Chinese citizens.

So the big difference here is that China is hacking other countries media outlets to go after THEIR OWN Chinese citizens

I know right? As a WSJ and NYT subscriber, I can attest to the fact that the email accounts of everyone that works for these companies is just an open book. The more interesting emails, especially from Chinese dissidents are usually posted on the front page along with their names, IPs, email addresses and encryption keys if you’re a subscriber. </sarcasm>